Book Club in Seward, Alaska

Here are some pictures from our book club that took place in Seward. One of our book club members has a house in Seward and she graciously opened her home up to us for our July book club. Her house is the pretty yellow one in all the pictures. It was myself, Sharon (owns the  house), Aunt Darlene, Aunt Diana, my cousin Nancy and my Aunt Darlenes sister who was visiting from Minnesota. We were supposed to meet up early on Saturday the 13th around 2 pm but Rainey  had her first ballet performance at the Bear Paw festival in Eagle River so the plan for me was to take two cars to the festival and then I would leave right after the performance for Seward and Tom would stay with Rainey and do more of the Bear Paw Festival with her ie.rides, etc. So that is what we did. I packed up my car with my sleeping bag, pillow, nighty etc and we all headed for the Bear Paw. I left Eagle River around 2:45 pm and I was in Seward by 5:15 pm. It said on the GPS that it would take 2 hours and 45 minutes. So I was able to shave a little bit of time but the traffic was light and there were not many campers on the road. It was a beautiful drive along the Seward Highway and I had the windows down, the sunroof open and the music on high. (I was in my element.) The wind was blowing my hair and I was throughly enjoying myself. I only had to make one quick stop in Girdwood for some gas and some beef jerky and water and I was on my way.  We  visited for a while and then left for dinner at Rays boathouse. I think we left about 6 or 6:30 but not sure but I do know we had about an hour wait for our table and I know by the time we got  home it was just about 10 pm. I had the seafood chowder, crab cake appetizer for my meal and the house salad. Nancy had the seafood linguine and the house salad. Sharon had the seafood linguine and Darlenes sister had the fish and chips, Darlene  had the salmon that came served on a wood plank and looked delicious and Aunt Diana had the Captains platter. The meal was out of this world delicious. We got lots of pictures. Most are on Nancys camera but I posted what I had on my camera.

We made our beds before starting bookclub. Sharon has two bedrooms so she had one and Diana had the other and then the rest of us slept in the garage. She has four big blow up mattresses and so we laid them all down on the floor of the garage and there was plenty of space. We made up our beds, put on our jammies and made it back to the living room for wine and book club. It was so much fun. I should say SO much fun. The view of the mountains was spectacular. It was so much fun to have book club in our jammies and to be relaxed and not be looking at the clock or worrying about driving home etc. About 11:30pm we took a break and had dessert. Chocolate cream pie, Lemon pie, and a strawberry cake that according to Nancy was to die for :0 She also had cold cuts, cheese and crackers. It was wonderful. Book club ended about 1:30 am when we finally all went to bed but when we got into bed we discovered we were wide awake !!! it took a while to fall asleep. At any rate I think we finally fell asleep around 2:30 am and were up at 7:30 am. !! What a fun slumber/book club party.

Our next book is House Rules by Jodi Pocoult and it is on September 1st at Aunt Darlenes.

Dynamite Box for 5

8 Piece Coconut Chicken Tenders

2# Barbecued Smoked Spareribs

8 Piece Breaded Chicken Strips

12 Korn Fritters w/ Honey Butter

1 Pint Baked Beans

1 Pint Cole Slaw

1 Pint Sourdough Barbecue Sauce 1/2 Pint Honey Mustard

 

We are going to be having the rib special from the Alaska Sourdough Mining Company take out which I will be going into pick up and then will be bringing out to book club with me. We will be adding some extras to this package but this will pretty much be our menu for book club.

 

The next day (Sunday) we got up at 7:30 and had coffee and putzed around until 10 am when we left for breakfast. We went to the Hotel Seward for breakfast and ate in one of their speciality dining rooms. Four people had the crab omelet, I had the veggie omelet and one person just had eggs,  potatos and toast. It was a good breakfast but I thought the hotel had an awful odor and it was pretty hot in the room and it took almost an hour and a half to get our food. Pretty much a bust on the breakfast. Then we all rode out to Lowell  point and got some pictures from the beach and finally back to Sharons where we parted. I left at 12:45 pm and it said it would take me 3 hours and it was pretty spot on. I pulled into the driveway at 3:45 pm well actually 3:53 pm but I was supposed to get here at 3:45 but I had to stop for more gas in Girdwood :) all in all it was a FANTASTIC fun time in Seward for book club.

 

As a sidenote: I know that not everyone likes pictures posted but the pictures I have posted are for relatives to enjoy looking at and are not meant to cause a problem. So if anyone wants to cause a problem by telling people about pictures on this blog and that they may not be flattering then go stuff it. Or just do not read my blog. I mean this in a nice way. I just know there are some people who like to cause problems where there do not need to be. So think about what you are doing before you do it. Thank you very much.